Amazing culinary feats performed in my kitchen as I learn how to cook just about everything without recipes and pass that knowledge on to you. (If you came here looking for Dejamo's Distracted, you came to the right place.)

Sunday, August 06, 2006

Priorities, Y'all (and Spicy Bits)

I had hoped to be food blogging more regularly by now, but I still haven't been cooking that much. I do have some hard-boiled eggs cooling in the fridge, which is a result of the thought I've been putting into Nicole's request for ideas for quick meals when you fall into a peanut butter and jelly sandwich rut. And I started thinking about hard boiled eggs.

Hard boiled eggs are a very good thing to have in your refrigerator when you're not really cooking, don't want to buy your meals, and don't want to put too much thought into what to eat. An egg, as you know, is a complete protein all by it's little old lonesome. Add a piece of fruit and some carrots and celery and you have a quick little lunch right there. If you want to go to a little more trouble, you can chop the eggs, add some celery and onion, salt, pepper, and a little mayo, and you have the perfect egg salad that you can spread onto some whole wheat bread for a lovely sandwich. If you have any lettuce in the fridge, or better yet lettuce and tomatoes, you can add those to make your sandwich pret' near perfect. It goes down nicely with a glass of milk.

One thing I like about eating them whole is that they travel well. They make a quick take-to-work lunch.

I have very little in my refrigerator right now. I went to see Little Miss Sunshine with friends last night so I did not go to the grocery store, as I had planned to do. I will do that later today. I liked the movie all right, but I thought it was a little predictable. By the way the audience (full house) reacted, we'll be hearing a lot about it. The acting was good, but how could it not be with Alan Arkin, Toni Collette, and Greg Kinnear (boy have I changed my mind about him in the last few years)? Steve Carrell, whom I have not seen in either "The Office" or The 40-Year-Old Virgin, was also good.

But as a result of my spending last night at the theater instead of the grocery store, I have to go later today and decide what I want to eat for the week. Because I'm determined to bring my own lunches to work starting tomorrow.

Which leads me to the subject of this post. Rather than spending my time working on the blog or cooking, I decided it was time to work out a budget. Moving from steadily dwindling resources to a seemingly perpetually refilling pot (thanks to direct deposit) can be a bit heady when you've been unemployed for a while. The desire to spend is strong, let me tell you. Coming fresh from a period of realizing just how little money it can take to support oneself (if one can keep one's focus away from all those little "must-have" distractions that are thrown at one every day), I am determined to set a budget for myself and stick to it.

Which can take quite a while, if you are as compulsive obsessive as I tend to be. What started out as a little exercise in allocating funds became a day-long self-tutorial on the wonders of Microsoft Excel. I'm finally mastering that sucker, though, and have come up with a budget that I can live with, and that will hopefully allow me to start saving some money.

Now for the spicy bits. You didn't think I meant those kinds of spicy bits, did you? I mentioned last week that Mary and I went to the Spice House in Old Town, so I took a little picture of the goodies I bought.

What you see is (clockwise from the left) blue poppy seeds, sesame seeds, dill weed, coriander seeds, aleppo chili peppers, and a new pepper grinder in the middle. I have three kinds of pepper and only had one grinder. This way I can keep the four-pepper mix in my old mill and use the new one for straight black or white pepper.

And that new little toy is part of why I decided I had better move on setting up a budget for myself.

2 comments:

Budget. Excellent idea. Must be catching, because I am planning one so that I have money for the big move. Also, Anne Hellman also recommended Little Miss Sunshine, so I have to see that.By the way, are you at any time in the next two weeks planning on going to the Saturday Green Market again? I need more of that fennel.